Part 41

“Yes,” Miss Matfield continued hurriedly. “He’s gone, and that means there’ll be an awful lot to do and they’ll have to get new people. Well, I’m going down to Angel Pavement in the morning--and I needn’t go if I don’t want, because I got the morning off when I thought I was going away for the week-end----”

“Wait a minute. Do you mean to say that you’ve actually got the morning off and yet you’re going all the same? You do? My dear, it sounds desperate.”

“Yes, I am. And I’m going to Mr. Dersingham, and I shall tell him that I believe I could do anything that any man could do--and I don’t care if it’s going round to the weirdest Jewy East End furniture places selling veneers--and that he ought to give me a chance. I believe he will too, particularly now, when business is so good and he’s so short of people. He could easily get another girl to do my typing, and that sort of thing, and I’d go and do some real work and then ask for more money. Very soon, I might have a real job, with a decent salary and proper responsibility and everything.”

“Quite crazy! Though I believe you could do it, if they’d give you a chance.”

“They’ll have to give me a chance, and I’m sure I could do it.”

She kept returning to the subject for the next hour, and then, when Miss Morrison had gone, she made up her mind all over again, and saw Messrs. Twigg & Dersingham growing more and more prosperous and herself, a real member of the firm, growing more and more prosperous with it. She arrived at Angel Pavement in a neat little car, and stepped out of it a cool, capable business woman, dressed with a certain austerity, but still attractive. Before she finally got to sleep, she had furnished not only her tiny flat in town, but also her little week-end cottage, which was the delighted admiration of her mother and other occasional guests. “Lilian, you _are_ lucky,” they cried; but she told them it was all the result of sheer hard work. This was the last dream of the day, and it was very pleasant. The dreams that followed in the night, the dreams that came without being asked, were curiously different, all dark and troubled, like the dreams of a child who has been hurried away to a strange place.

III

Mrs. Dersingham, Miss Verever and Mr. and Mrs. Pearson were playing bridge upstairs at 34, Barkfield Gardens, in the Pearsons’ drawing-room. Mr. Dersingham should have been there, but he had telephoned to say that urgent business kept him at the office, so Miss Verever, who was usually abroad at this time of the year but had stayed in London because she was quarrelling with her solicitors, had taken his place. She was always ready to take anybody’s place at any dining or bridge tables, though she never gave the least sign that she was enjoying herself. The card table was in the middle of the room, and there was only just space enough for it and its four players, in spite of the fact that this was a large room, larger than any of the Dersinghams’ downstairs. The trouble was that the Pearsons had so many things. They had furnished the room first with good solid late Victorian furniture, and then they had poured into it the glittering East, all the loot of Singapore. If the Federated Malay States had been destroyed by an earthquake and a great tidal wave, their life could have been re-constructed out of that room, which put any missionary exhibition to shame. Everybody looked out of place in it, and nobody more out of place than the Pearsons themselves.

They were now playing their third rubber of auction. Mrs. Dersingham had Mr. Pearson for her partner, and they were not badly paired, for she was rather a bold, slap-dash player, while he was very dull, cautious, obvious, though he always tried to give the impression of immense cunning. Nobody believed in this cunning of his except his wife, who would shake her mysterious dark curls at him and girlishly protest against his sinister subtlety. “Isn’t he dreadful?” she would cry, after Mr. Pearson, with much stroking of his chin and narrowing of his eyes, had succeeded in some commonplace _finesse_. Mrs. Pearson, though she had been sitting at bridge tables for years, was one of those cheerfully bad players who continually ask for and receive advice, but have not the slightest intention of improving their play. Probably she only saw the cards as so many vague pieces of pasteboard, and what was real to her was simply the social scene, the faces round the green cloth and the pleasant chatter between games. If somebody had suggested playing _Snap_ with the cards or telling fortunes with them, she would have been delighted, but as people seemed to prefer bridge, whether in Singapore or in London, she gladly made one at the table. And if all Barkfield Gardens had been combed, it would have been impossible to find a worse partner for Miss Verever, who played a good, keen, close, give-no-quarter game, and loathed all idle chatterers at the table, all idiots who would _not_ get trumps out, all the fools who clung to their wretched aces, all the witless monsters who said, “Have you seen her lately? I haven’t seen her for weeks and weeks. Let me see, _what_ are trumps?” Mrs. Pearson combined smilingly every fault in bridge-playing known to Miss Verever, and Miss Verever’s glances and tone of voice, queer and disturbing at any time, were now more queer and disturbing than ever, so that Mrs. Dersingham felt quite frightened and wished she had never asked her to take Howard’s place. On Mrs. Pearson herself, however, these very peculiar glances, these biting accents seemed to have no effect.

“Well,” said Mr. Pearson, picking up his pencil, “that’s three down, doubled--three hundred to us. Simple honours to you, eighteen. Didn’t do badly that time, eh partner? Must make something while we can. Tee-tee-tee-tee-tee.”

“Isn’t he dreadful?” cried Mrs. Pearson. “And you’re nearly as bad, my dear, you’re encouraging him. You see what it is, playing against my husband, Miss Verever. He’s a dreadful man. Never mind, we’ll do better next time, won’t we?”

“But was it necessary to go Three Spades?” Miss Verever enquired bitterly.

“Well, wasn’t it? Oh, do tell me if it wasn’t. When you’d gone One, you see, and I had some spades, I thought we might win the rubber if we played the spades. If you think I did anything wrong, Miss Verever, don’t be afraid of telling me, because I know you’re ever so much better than I am. Should I have played that king first?”

Miss Verever drew a deep breath, but Mrs. Dersingham was too quick for her. “Oh, don’t let’s have post-mortems,” she cried. “Whose deal is it? Mine, isn’t it?”

“I suppose Mr. Dersingham will come up when he gets back, won’t he?” said Mrs. Pearson, who never failed to snatch at any little opportunity for a chat. “He’s late, isn’t he? It must be so tiring for him, poor man. We know what it is, don’t we?”

“We do,” replied her husband. “At least I do, my dear. Tee-tee-tee-tee-tee.”

“He used to work terribly late sometimes out in Singapore,” Mrs. Pearson explained. “Night after night, sometimes in the hot season, too.”

“Couldn’t grumble though,” said Mr. Pearson. “It meant that business was good.”

“Yes, of course, that’s what I feel,” said Mrs. Dersingham, pausing in her dealing. “I suppose they’ve had a sudden rush or something.”

“That’s splendid, isn’t it?” cried Mrs. Pearson. “I do like to hear of anybody I know doing so well. So many people don’t now, do they?”

“It’s made a great difference to Howard, being so busy,” said Mrs. Dersingham, still with the cards motionless in her hand. “He really likes being in the City now. He was getting very depressed about it some time ago. Now let me see----”

“The next card should be mine,” said Miss Verever coldly.

“Oh, should it? That’s all right, then.” And she continued dealing.

“Well, I didn’t want to say anything at the time, my dear,” Mrs. Pearson began, but she was cut short. Mrs. Dersingham looked up to see Miss Verever, on her right, giving her a terrible glance, and so she hastily declared “Pass.”

“But I thought he seemed rather depressed about it, too,” Mrs. Pearson continued. “About six months ago, wasn’t it?”

“_One Heart_,” said Miss Verever, quietly, but with a fearful intonation. “_One Heart._”

“Oh dear, have you started bidding already? How quick you are with your cards!” Mrs. Pearson began sorting hers in a frantic fashion. “Did you say One Heart? You did, didn’t you? Well, after last time, I shall say--nothing.”

“But it’s not your turn to say anything,” Mr. Pearson pointed out. “In this game, your husband for once gets a chance to speak. And I say--One No Trumps. Yes, this is where your husband’s allowed to speak, my dear. Tee-tee-tee-tee-tee.”

They were a game all in this rubber, so Miss Verever struggled up to Three Hearts, but her opponents went Three No Trumps, got them, won the rubber, and put her down eight hundred points.

“Is there time for another rubber?” said Mrs. Pearson, who was always quite willing to go on playing, perhaps because she never really started.

“I hardly think there is,” said Miss Verever, with one of her peculiar smiles.

“No, let’s stop now,” cried Mrs. Dersingham.

“Somebody owes me four and ninepence,” Mr. Pearson pointed out.

“Listen to him! Isn’t he really a dreadful man when he plays this game? I believe I’ve lost four and nine--or is it five and nine?” Mrs. Pearson shook her curls at the score. “But I refuse to pay _you_ anything, so there!”

“Tee-tee-tee-tee-tee.”

“Well, I suppose I must pay _my_ debts,” said Miss Verever, looking at her score as if it was composed of something filthy, then glancing round without removing all the last expression from her face. “I pay you, I think, my dear. I’m afraid--yes, I’m afraid--I shall have to ask you for change.”

“It doesn’t matter,” said Mrs. Dersingham hastily. “I haven’t got any change.”

“Please remind me then, the next time.” Miss Verever said this as if they would soon be meeting in some torture chamber.

Somebody had arrived. It must be--it was--Mr. Dersingham. He came forward, blinking a little. His wife did not like the look of him. He was flushed and rather untidy.

Mrs. Pearson rushed at him. “Come along, you poor, poor man! Sit down here. Make yourself comfortable. You’ve been working all this time while we’ve been enjoying ourselves. Walter, give poor Mr. Dersingham a drink this minute. I’m sure you’d like one, wouldn’t you?”

Mr. Dersingham said that he would, and the next minute he was taking a good swig of a large whisky and soda. When he put the glass down, he caught his wife’s eye, and for a moment he just stared at her. She liked the look of him now less than ever. To begin with, this was by no means the first large whisky he had had that night. She saw that at once. But that was not all. There was something wrong. She glanced round and saw Miss Verever staring at him, and decided immediately that the sooner Miss Verever left them the better. She did not mind much about the Pearsons, who were kind and homely people, but she did not want Maud Verever to see or hear anything. She was about to suggest that they must go, when Mr. Pearson spoke.

“Had a long day, Dersingham, eh?” said Mr. Pearson, his cheeks wobbling sympathetically. “We were just talking about it. I know what it is. I’ve had these rushes, you know, working half the night--in the hot season too, not a breath of air. Takes it out of you, I’ll tell you. Still, it’s good for business, isn’t it? Better than the other way round, eh? Tee-tee-tee-tee-tee.”

“I think I really ought to be going now,” said Miss Verever, with one of her dreadful smiles.

“Enjoyed yourself?” said Mr. Dersingham.

She started back. “Oh--of course,” she replied, keeping her eyes fixed on him.

“Good. I’m glad to hear it. I like to hear of anybody enjoying themselves, and specially you, Miss Verever.”

There was something very extraordinary about this, but Miss Verever did not care to stop and investigate it. She began saying Good-night. Mrs. Dersingham said that they must go too, but Mr. Dersingham refused to stir, so Miss Verever left by herself, though Mrs. Dersingham accompanied her down the stairs.

“Howard doesn’t seem to be very well to-night, does he?” said Miss Verever, when they reached the hall below, in the Dersingham half of the building.

“He’s tired, that’s all. I don’t think he’s very well. He’s been working tremendously hard. It’s terribly tiring working late like this down in the City.”

“I suppose it is.” And it would be impossible to cram a larger amount of dubiety into four words than Miss Verever did into those four.

“Of course it is,” cried Mrs. Dersingham, a trifle impatiently. “You just try it and see.”

“Why, have you tried it, my dear? If you have, it’s news to me. However, I hope Howard’s better soon. He shouldn’t tire himself out like that. It must be very bad for him. Don’t you think so? Well, it was very nice of you to ask me to make the four up and play with Mrs. Pearson. Good-bye, my dear.”

Mrs. Dersingham hurried back to the Pearsons, slightly alarmed and considerably annoyed. It looked as if Howard had not been kept late at the office at all, but had sneaked off to his club, where he had had more drinks than were good for him. There was always just a little, a little, danger of that with Howard. She found him sitting with his legs stretched out straight in front of him, listening to the Pearsons, who were still talking about Singapore.

“Taking it all round, y’know, the good with the bad,” Mr. Pearson concluded, “it’s not such a bad life out there, though it’s not so good as it was. It isn’t anywhere in the East. Still, even so, I believe if I’d my time over again, I’d go out there again, I really believe I would.”

“Good!” said Mr. Dersingham, with a kind of dreary solemnity. “All right then, Pearson, what about that job out there you promised to get me?”

“Any time, any time! Tee-tee-tee-tee-tee. When would you like it? Tee-tee-tee.” Mr. Pearson evidently regarded this as a great joke.

“You can start getting it for me now, old man.”

Mrs. Pearson joined in the joke. “You’d better be getting your clothes ready, my dear,” she told Mrs. Dersingham, who smiled, though not very brightly. She did not see anything very funny in all this, and her husband was behaving very stupidly. It was time she got him away.

“I’m serious, y’know,” he declared now, with the same dreary solemnity. “I’m not joking. You get me that job out there as soon as you can. I’m serious.”

“That’s right. So are we. When would you like it then? Tee-tee-tee-tee-tee.”

Mr. Dersingham drained his glass, then examined what was left in it, the last golden drops, with a thoroughness that suggested he was conducting a chemical experiment.

“We _really_ must go, yes, really we must,” cried Mrs. Dersingham, with a forced brightness; and in less than two minutes she had said all there was to say and had hustled her husband and herself out of the room. There was no fire in the drawing-room below, but there was the whitening ruin of one in the dining-room, and immediately he stumped in there in a heavy sort of way and sat down. She walked in after him, but did not sit down.

“I’m going to bed,” she announced coldly.

“Just a minute,” he said in a muffled voice.

“I prefer to go to bed. I’m tired, even if you’re not.” And she turned away.

“No, don’t go,” he cried, quite sharply now, with hardly anything of that thickness in his voice that had been there before. “You mustn’t, Pongo. I’ve got something to tell you.”

She closed the door and came back. “Pongo” was his old specially silly delightful name for her, and even now, when she was annoyed with him, when he was a large, pink, sagging creature, whose every stupidity she knew by heart, when he was sitting there, flushed and thick with whisky, not at all the sort of man she ever imagined she was marrying, a hundred times less attentive and considerate and clever and courageous, even now, the sound of that “Pongo” gave her a little thrill. She was annoyed with herself for feeling it. If he imagined he was going to be forgiven at once, simply because he had called her by that name, he was sadly mistaken.

She took up a position on the other side of the hearth, and stood looking down on him. “I should think you have something to say! Have you been to the club?”

He nodded and waved an impatient hand. “That was nothing,” he muttered.

“No, but if you _must_ pretend you have to work late and then you go on to the club and fuddle yourself with drinks, you might at least have the sense to keep out of the way, instead of barging in like that and behaving so stupidly. No, Howard, I’m really disgusted. You know I’m not silly about drinking, as some women are. But there’s a limit. I believe you’re drinking a jolly sight too much these days, a lot more than is good for you. Yes, I mean it. Anybody could see what was the matter with you to-night, up there.”

“Oh, could they?” He gave a little laugh.

“Yes, of course they could.”

“Well, believe me, my dear, they _couldn’t_. Not one of ’em. Not you, even. No, not you.”

“Oh, don’t be silly, Howard.”

“I’m not being silly. I wish to God I was. You know when I asked Pearson about that job? I suppose you thought I was being funny then, didn’t you?”

“I didn’t think you were being particularly funny,” she told him, “though you obviously thought you were. If you want to know what I thought, it was that you were just being rather stupid.”

“Well, I wasn’t, Pongo,” he said quietly. “I was quite serious. No, listen. We’re absolutely done--I mean the firm, Twigg and Dersingham--completely finished.”

“Howard, you don’t mean it?”

“Yes, I do. That’s what kept me to-night. I had a drink or two just because I felt played out, and I suppose I did show it--sorry about that--but I’ve had a hell of a day. Golspie’s cleared out and left us----”

“But you told me the other day that even if Golspie did go, it wouldn’t matter and you’d arranged everything so that you could do without him.”

“I know, but the rotten swine did me down----”

“But how? I don’t understand. Howard, you don’t really mean it’s as serious as all that? The firm can go on, can’t it?”

He shook his head, and kept his face turned away. He looked like a great foolish baby. She swept down on him. “Tell me what’s happened. Why didn’t you tell me at once? I’m sorry I was cross with you. I didn’t know it was anything serious--naturally. Now tell me.”

He told her the whole wretched story.

“But do you mean to say that brute has gone and you can’t do anything, anything at all? But it’s ridiculous. Can’t you tell the police? Why, it’s just as bad as burglary or swindling. It _is_ swindling. But I knew, I _knew_ all the time that something would happen because of that man. He hated us after that night he came here and I lost my temper with that vile little minx of a daughter. I felt all the time he did. I told you to get rid of him, didn’t I? Oh, Howard, you have been stupid. Yes, you have. I’ll never believe in you again as a business man. You used to tell me I didn’t understand about these things, but I’m sure I understand about people--and that’s the main thing--better than you. But what’s going to happen now?”

“I don’t know,” he mumbled miserably, and he explained as best he could the position they were in. As she listened, she suddenly saw the four walls enclosing them, the table and chairs and sideboard, everything in sight, no longer as solid objects, fixed, rooted in a secure existence, but as things brittle as glass, unstable and wavering as water. Nor did her imagination stop there. It explored the whole maisonette, the drawing-room, the kitchen below, the nursery and bedrooms, and discovered nothing substantial there, except the two children asleep upstairs and a few personal possessions that had long ceased to be mere things. She realised now, with a shock of dismay, that something absurd and fantastic could happen in Angel Pavement, far away, that could change all this. Their life here in Barkfield Gardens, not their personal life, but everything else, all the cleaning and cooking and shopping and visiting, was a mere candle-flame--one puff of wind, a wind that came from nowhere, and it was gone. She understood how millions of people live. It was a moment of revelation.

“What are we going to do?” she asked.

“I don’t know yet,” he replied wearily. “Give me time. I haven’t had a chance to think yet. Hang it all, this has all been dropped on me like a ton of bricks. God!--I’m tired.”

He sounded helpless, looked helpless. Her mind began working furiously now, and the effect, after months and months of stagnation, of pretending and dreaming and vague discontent, was curiously exhilarating. “Do you think Mr. Pearson could get you a job out East?”

“No, I don’t.”

“But why? You haven’t asked him properly. He doesn’t know you want one--if you really do want one, and I’m not sure about that.”

“I know he doesn’t, my dear. But I’m sure when he does he’ll change his tune. I felt that when he was talking to-night. It’s all right,” he added bitterly, as if he had suddenly discovered what the world was like and what men were made of, “while it’s still a joke. The minute he finds I’m serious, he’ll pull a long face. I don’t mean he’s not a decent chap and all that. But he thinks he’s talking to a prosperous business man who doesn’t really want a job. That’s the difference.”

“I must have some tea,” she announced. “It’s no good; we must talk it over; if I went to bed I shouldn’t sleep a wink--and if we’re going to stay up, I must have some tea. I’ll go down and make some. No, I can do it by myself. You stay here, and, Howard, do, do try and think of something. Try and find out how much money we’ll have left--and everything.”

When she returned with the tea, he was still sitting in the same huddled fashion. “Listen, I’ve been thinking,” she began, almost gaily. But seeing him there, a large melancholy heap of man, she put down the tray, came across, pushed him back in his chair, and stood looking down at him, her hands still on his shoulders.

“Do you love me?” she asked.

He found this question as difficult as ever, but this time there was none of that masculine impatience or grinning intolerance. “As a matter of fact, I do,” he told her in a shamefaced mumble, “but I don’t feel this is the time to say so.”

“Of course it is. Why not?”

“Well, I’ve let you down. I’ve let you down badly. I’ve been a fool. I’ll admit I have. But I never liked the business, you know that, don’t you? If it hadn’t been for the cursed War, I’d never have gone into it. Not my style at all. I always hated it really--Angel Pavement and all those damned furniture places and sniffling East End Jews, and the whole thing. I’ve tried my best, but it’s always gone against the grain. I’m not excusing myself, mind, though honestly I think anybody might have been let down the same way by that artful devil. Smeeth--and he’s been in business all his life--never had a suspicion. He was more surprised than I was. And a fellow I talked to at the Club said he’d never heard of such a thing, said I couldn’t be blamed at all. But there it is. What bothers me is that there’s some of your money gone, too. I’m sorry, Pongo. I seem to have made a mess of it.”

“I have some money left, though.”

“Not much,” he told her gloomily. “About twelve hundred, perhaps. No, not quite that.”

“Well, that’s something, isn’t it? It’s quite a lot, really. And after all you’ve had very good business experience now. Then--you remember what Uncle Phil said? Just a minute; I’ll pour out the tea. Yes, you must have some.” She did not sound at all depressed.